Maybe I'm just getting old.  But I really believe that anyone who uses words like "thinky" or "squee", liberally uses OMG, and describes characters in a production by listing their emotion followed by an exclamation point and the character name (ex. annoyed!Barry) is a complete moron with the emotional development of a 5-year old.

If they wanted to haul an old sci-fi show out of mothballs and turn it into some crappy meta-fiction swamped post-post-post-postmodern/ironic half-assed clone of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, why did it have to be Doctor Who?  I'm sure Buck Rogers or Mork & Mindy would've done just as well.  Hell, with the lack of meaningful characterization, "magic wand" plotting, and generally poor level of writing this show has sunk to they could've just remade BJ and the Bear but set on a spaceship instead of a big rig and people would lap it up.

At least this year I was somewhat prepared for the finale to be crap, so I can honestly say I wasn't disappointed.

If anyone remembers The Brave Little Toaster, this reminds me of the flower the Toaster found in the forest all by itself.  It fell in love with its reflection in the Toaster's shiny metal casing before withering away from loneliness when the Toaster pulled away from its embrace.  Still brings a tear to my eye, what can I say?

The image doesn't really do her beauty justice, but the only easily accessible camera at the moment is the one in my phone.  When I got her she only had two blooming flowers.  Amazingly I've managed to keep her alive and flourishing, so I thought maybe it was time for a name.  Any ideas?

I keep seeing these somewhat cheap looking hoodies and vests with the company name The North Face printed on the front.  I couldn't figure out why they were so popular until today when I was riding home on the train.  I happened to catch a glimpse of the cuff on the jacket of the man next to me.  There was yet another logo.  But this time it said APEX.  Then it dawned on me that the logo was the same as the cheap DVD player I have that hardly ever works.  So the clothes must come free with each $50 player.  I guess I'd wear them too under those circumstances, but mine didn't come with one for some strange reason.  Oh well.

EDIT: Not North Star, it was The North Face.

You know, I'm sick of being negative about Doctor Who.  But it really has become embarrassingly bad.  I watched the series premiere tonight and it actually made the Torchwood series finale I watched last night look half-decent.  At least that particular episode of Torchwood only had a single unrealistic one-dimensional character instead of an entire cast made up of them, including the Doctor himself.  And plot?  Bah, who needs a plot when you can fill your characters with lame one-liners and beat people over the head with silly, overly bombastic, and entirely inappropriate orchestral music every time a character so much as blinks.  Utter crap.  Why do I keep doing this to myself?

On a more positive note, the season opener of Battlestar Galactica was quite good.  And Ashes to Ashes holds up the premise developed in Life on Mars surprisingly well.

AOL sez...
Silly human, WE decide when to stop charging your credit card, not you!

Verizon has the exact SAME POLICY as AOL does for "retaining" customers. At least in the DSL department in which I worked for a while. In fact I'd go so far to say that all communication companies (ISPs, wireless phones, etc.) have a Retention department equipped with all sorts of nasty psychological tricks and manipulation techniques.

Original article can be found here.

My old keyboard decided to suddenly and mysteriously die on me so I was forced to buy a new one.  Now the above device shows up in my hardware list.  I wonder if this is something I should be concerned about...

I think I'm going to take a pass on watching Doctor Who next season unless something amazing happens next week.  I've been a fan for 22 years and this is the first time I've felt like that.  It's been such a big part of my life and a huge influence on me that this makes me very sad.  But the show has turned into a pantomime of itself and is becoming painful to watch.  I find myself actually hoping it gets cancelled so a few years can go by and someone else can possibly revive it again.  The episode this past Saturday was such utter trash that I don't even really want to talk about what went on in it.  There are some great elements to it and there's some amazing talent involved, but Russell T Davies (the head writer and producer) has flushed all that down the toilet in favor of a few cheap and extremely unfunny jokes.  The show has had some major crap in it before (I'm thinking the mid-80's here) but at least it always seemed to take itself seriously.  And the special effects may have been bad, but the writing was never this condescending.  Doctor Who used to be an innovative and intelligent program.  Now it's just a bad SNL skit.

The members of the Rational Response Squad squared off with Christians Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort about the existence of God on Nightline.  Click on the image above to view the complete story.

Main Entry: moron
Pronunciation: 'mor-"än
Function: noun
Etymology: irregular from Greek mOros foolish, stupid
1 usually offensive : a mildly mentally retarded person
2 : a very stupid person

Above are four people that I find fit this description pretty well.  Also I'd include Martin Bashir, their "moderator" and the brain trust that thought up this whole exercise in futility.  Why do people feel the need to argue about the existence/non-existence of God?  It never achieves anything, other than lots of angry yelling at each other.  This isn't like debating the merits of increasing the tax on cigarettes, or what color you should paint your house.  This is a very personal belief, probably the most personal belief that ever was.  This question cannot be definitively answered one way or another by proof, or even faith really when it comes to convincing others.  If you don't believe in God then you most likely believe in Evolution, so what makes you think we've got all the faculties necessary now to unlock ALL the secrets of the Universe, including whether or not there is a higher power or not?  What if we don't have that capacity yet?  And if you do believe in God, then what makes you think that as human beings that we have the same omniscience as God to definitively know how the Universe came into existence?  Wouldn't that be saying we're just as powerful and all-knowing?

This constant arguing is both pointless and tedious.  It's hard to fathom that the four people in the picture above truly believe that they're doing their respective sides any good at all by bickering like a bunch of kindergarteners.  Leave it alone and let people figure things out for themselves.  Religion and science don't have to conflict if people would just admit that they don't have all the answers and let go of this constant need to be "right" all the time.

I'm off to New York for the weekend.  I'm flying out of Richmond tomorrow night and will be back Sunday.  Going to see my very favorite Hamilton in the world, my best friend from childhood, and one of my very bestest friends in the world.  It's gonna rock to no small extent :)

So there are people protesting Queen Elizabeth II's visit to Richmond on Thursday...  I am alone in seeing the humor in this?  I mean really, what a colossal waste of time!  Apparently this is to protest the "colonialism, imperialism, and racism that the monarchy represents".  Ok fine, but why waste your breath on the monarchy in the UK?  Maybe 100 years ago this would have been a worthwhile endeavor, but the English monarchy in the present day yields no power whatsoever.  On paper maybe, but in practice they can't do a damn thing.  Hell, the Queen even opposed the Iraq War from the beginning and it didn't do any good.  Shouldn't people be putting their energy into protesting to people that have some sort of power to change things?  I see something like this and it's no wonder people don't take protesters as seriously as they did 30 years ago.

Of course it doesn't stop there.  The organizers of the protest go on to say that "this is in addition to the undeniable fact that Jamestown’s founding was predicated on the genocide of Native Americans and the enslavement of African Americans."  As much as I hate to say it because I really am saddened by slavery and the massacre of the Native Americans during the formative years of the country, the above statement just isn't historically accurate.  Not even close really, and it just makes the person look really stupid.  Jamestown was formed to make money, period.  They didn't come here to attack the natives.  At first anyway, relations were somewhat peaceful at least in the fact that attempts were made by both sides to form a truce or alliance.  As far as slavery, that horrible chapter in our history didn't begin until 1654 in Northampton County.  The first Africans to come to Jamestown in 1619 were indentured servants who were eventually freed.  It didn't stay like that for long unfortunately, but to blame slavery on the forming of Jamestown just doesn't make any sense.  Things were handled really terribly in the later part of the 17th century, but it didn't have to be that way.  Colonizing Jamestown wasn't the cause.  You might as well blame the Phoenicians or the Vikings for coming up with the idea to travel here.

The sad thing about all this is that I agree with the organizers' principles, but their execution leaves a lot to be desired.  I really thing it's doing more harm than good to the causes they are supposedly fighting for.

I saw this today and while I wasn't totally shocked that the Westboro Baptist Church would do such a indescribably sickening thing considering their conduct thus far, it still made me quite angry.  I don't like being angry.  So I decided to use the anger constructively and submit the following to their website:

Dear Shirley, Westboro Baptist, et al:

Since Fred Phelps got a law degree from Washburn University, and Washburn University was established in February 1865 as Lincoln College by a charter issued by the State of Kansas, by your logic doesn't that mean that he is going to Hell too?  I mean, that's what you said about the Virginia Tech students that were killed Monday.  Shirley said that the "so called higher education system of this nation has a primary objective and that is to teach rebellion against God to every child they can get their hands on."  Fred was part of that system, so he gets sent down to the fiery depths too, right?

If you say that he and the other members of your church that have attended state schools have made amends with God so they won't get sent to Hell (or something along those lines), it still seems that if you have any connection to America that you're going to Hell.  Well... since you obey the laws of America to some extent, and your compound uses electricity, water, etc. from the state of Kansas, you use the Internet which has lots of hardware based in U.S. companies & the government, you've appeared on American TV networks, and I'm sure you buy food and supplies locally in Kansas, and use the U.S. Postal Service, among countless other American services, doesn't that mean that you're going to Hell too?  Sorry about that.  It will be hard to picket your own funerals when you're already dead.  Good luck figuring that one out.

Sincerely,
Barry H.

It may not seem like much and I'm trying to hold back the anger, but if I'd ranted and raved it would be dismissed immediately.  I'm sure they'll come up with some half-assed and flawed logic to explain it away, but I hope it at least puts a question in the mind of the person that receives it.  I may be naive, but I doubt they'll actually show up to any of the funerals in Virginia.  Because they would be arrested thanks to a well-written law that was put on the books last year to combat them specifically.  But if they do I'll be there.  I've wanted to protest this sickness before but I've never been close enough to make it.  I will this time.

Back in 1997, when I was finishing school at Bethel High in Hampton, Virginia, most of my friends were preparing for college. For those not staying locally or going out of state, there were three main choices. Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of Virginia, and Virginia Tech. Most chose the latter. Virginia Tech would have been my choice too, but I was accepted into the Film & Video program at Drexel University in Philly. But so many of my friends and family chose Tech. My uncle graduated there, my mother, sister, and cousin went to its sister school, Radford University. But I probably have one of the least personal connections to Virginia Tech out of most of my fellow Virginians.

Virginia is far from my favorite place. I honestly don't like it here at all. But it is my home. Yesterday my home was raped of a certain innocence. A terrible violence fell upon Virginia Tech. A violence that goes beyond the gunshots and the fallen. But the tragedy has not ended. As the have passed I have noticed arguments erupting over the cause of this awful event. The anger that was unleashed yesterday is spreading like a cancer across the globe. Violence begets violence, whether it be words or bullets. There will be a time to begin looking for answers, but it is NOT now. The dead haven't even been buried yet and we're already hurling insults and accusations against one another. Whatever you believe was the cause, or whatever you think could have been done to prevent the carnage yesterday, just remember that 33 people died yesterday. There is nothing that can be done to change that. Don't let the violence that took root in Blacksburg grow any further than it already has. Just pray if you're religious, bow your head in remembrance if not, or just do nothing. It's also ok to not care about it. But don't let the hate that consumed the killer consume you as well. There will be a time to begin to learn from this event, and discussion and debate will be a part of that. But it is not yet that time.

The images are very gruesome Abbi.  Thank you for that.  We're going to take a quick commercial break...
-Wolf Blitzer

So I guess this is what they call a "fast" news day.  I have nothing else to say.  It's all been said over and over and over again already just in the past 16 hours or so.  Gruesome is the right word, I'll give you that Wolf. Lots of talking but no one is saying much of anything. What else could I possibly add?

Series Three of Doctor Who starts today in the UK with the episode "Smith & Jones" introducing the new companion Martha Jones.  And thanks to the wonders of the Intertubes I should be able to watch it very shortly.  Yay!

I just got a new job at the Daily Press.  I start Monday morning.  Woo-hoo!

The Day After Tomorrow really is an awful, awful movie.  Why is it always on when I turn on the TV?  And why do I feel compelled to watch this horrible shipwreck of a film?  Damn Roland Emmerich and his visual crack.  I mean it's not nearly as bad as Independence Day, but Jake Gyllenhaal should've known better.  I can forgive Dennis Quaid (he needed the money) and Ian Holm (English actors usually pick awful American movies to be in), but Jake really lost a lot of respect from me for this crap.

Time marches on, on top of my head.
And it's marching on a flatbed car of a train that's so loud my ears bleed.
The blood isn't red, it's clear like water.
But it stains my shirt just the same.
The drops drip down to the ticking of a clock.
The ticking becomes louder until I can't hear the train anymore.
Or maybe the blood has just clogged up my ears.
See, there's the questions again.  There's the confusion, it's always there.
Just like time and it's damned ticking clocks.
I see the confusion, hear the clocks, and feel the blood.
They're like a wrong number that just won't stop calling back and asking for Frank.
"Well at least the phone isn't ringing" I think.  Or did I say it?
I still can't hear, my shirt is soaked and it's freezing.
The train is still rushing by so the wind must be howling.
They say time goes in circles, and so must this train.
Because it never stops, just like the ticking of the clocks.

Today the frame of my eyeglasses broke.  Then my car broke down.  And while trying to fix my car apparently I also broke my big toe because it's swollen, turning purple, hurts like hell, and I can't move it.  Oh, and I'm also broke, money wise.

Broke, broke, broken, and completely broke.  Today was NOT a good day, not by far.